Yeah, Spock was an Uncle Tom Tom alien like Tonto with The Lone Ranger and Kato with the Green Hornet.

Ohhhh, he was a bit more then that. More like the outsider looking in who could make observations about human culture and history that the producers of the show might not have got away with otherwise. It actually worked very well. I’m minded of a quote from “The Immunity Syndrome” where Spock told McCoy:

“You find it easier to understand the death of one than the death of a million. You speak about the objective hardness of the Vulcan heart, yet how little room there seems to be in yours.”

Zing.

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Question authority and think for yourself. Big Brother does not know best and never has.

Yeah, Spock was an Uncle Tom Tom alien like Tonto with The Lone Ranger and Kato with the Green Hornet.

Ohhhh, he was a bit more then that. More like the outsider looking in who could make observations about human culture and history that the producers of the show might not have got away with otherwise. It actually worked very well. I’m minded of a quote from “The Immunity Syndrome” where Spock told McCoy:

“You find it easier to understand the death of one than the death of a million. You speak about the objective hardness of the Vulcan heart, yet how little room there seems to be in yours.”

Zing.

I said:

But the entire concept of the Vulcan culture presents an interesting paradigm.

Spock was supposed to be a product of that culture.

The “man fro Mars” view of humanity was something quite common in the more intellectual sci-fi literature of the 50s and early 60s but not so much in TV and movies.

psik

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Physics is Phutile
Fiziks is Fundamental
Since 9/11 Physics has been History

Fair enough, but what makes you think the guy was an Uncle Tom? Chalk it up to differing perspectives but I just don’t see it that way.

Uncle Tom Tom

Because Kirk was the Lone Ranger in outer space. With a libido of course since it was the 60s.

Television gives Americans the images it thinks we want to see. Or has psychologically conditioned us to expect. That is the funny thing about the first Star Trek pilot The Cage. Roddenberry wanted more sophisticated stuff but the studios would not let him do it. Actually the studios wanted to get rid of Spock. He eliminated that uppity woman officer instead.

Not happy with his supporting roles in the United States., Lee returned to Hong Kong. Unaware that The Green Hornet had been played to success in Hong Kong and was unofficially referred to as “The Kato Show”, he was surprised to be recognised on the street as the star of the show.

Methinks we may be taking this thread a bit too seriously. Claims to the contrary notwithstanding, I don’t see Spock as an Uncle Tom character as much as I see him as the guy who offers the outside commentary on humanity, and he was…in my opinion…pretty effective at that.

Obviously, some differ but that’s allright. In the end, it’s only a show.

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Question authority and think for yourself. Big Brother does not know best and never has.

Obviously, some differ but that’s allright. In the end, it’s only a show.

And so were The Lone Ranger and The Green Hornet.

But some people refuse to look at the psychology of the culture that created them and the psychologies they perpetuate. What does it say about THE CULTURE that Roddenberry had to get rid of a woman 1st officer from The Cage pilot? The TV programs and the literature is culturally interactive. It is a product of the culture and it perpetuates the culture. But it also changes the culture.

In 1968, amid a storm of racial controversy, my father watched William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols share a kiss onscreen that made headlines. When I was young, I watched that same kiss without thinking twice.

I started and titled this thread because GOOD science fiction is more than just entertainment. Science and technology change society and people have to make decisions about those changes. But of course there is more going on in society than just science and technology. Of course stuff that is TOO CONTROVERSIAL tends to disappear fast.

psik

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Physics is Phutile
Fiziks is Fundamental
Since 9/11 Physics has been History

A lot of problems have arisen in the world because people don’t have the right attitude about science. Actually lots of science fiction perpetuates the wrong attitude about science. Bujold’s father was an engineer and apparently she got saturated with sci-fi as a kid. But I think her stuff has the right attitude.

The political aspect of our global warming problem is an example of faulty attitudes about science. I am not sure our schools that supposedly teach science are really solving the problem. They usually act as though everybody isn’t supposed to know it and that it is reserved for an elite so they pretend it is more difficult than it actually is. I wonder what a planet full of Vulcans would have been doing about global warming by 2000.

I picked Komarr as the best book because of the physics and technology described in the plot.

Her entire Vorkosigan series is available for free on the net if you can handle e-reading.